The Prague Spring is a short period of liberation experienced by the Czechoslovaks during the inauguration of Alexandu Dubcek as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1968, granting greater freedom to the press that the Communist Party did not allow and seeking economic and political reforms.

It did not take long for the forces of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact to quell the revolution of the Czechoslovakians who wanted "socialist rule with a human face", and subjected Prague with tanks to be under communist rule until the velvet revolution in 1989.

The spark.. Dubcek's inauguration

Aleksander Dubcek was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In 1949 he was elected first secretary of the party, then a member of the Central Committee and then a member of the National Parliament.

In 1952 he was elected Secretary of the Czechoslovak National Front, and assumed the highest positions in the party at the age of 42, and this coincided with the deterioration of the economic situation of Czechoslovakia, which was reflected in the lives of citizens.

The Czechoslovak street was angry at the inability of Antonin Novotny, the then Czechoslovak leader, to handle the situation, and Dubcek was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on January 5, 1968.

After his appointment as Secretary-General of the Communist Party, Dubcek went to Moscow in a traditional procedure for party leaders, but the situation in Czechoslovakia was getting worse, and prompted Dubcek to announce some reforms after his return from Moscow, hoping to absorb the anger of the people.

Among the reforms he proposed related to freedom of expression and the press, he also put forward an electoral program entitled "The Czechoslovak Road to Socialism", and called for the abolition of the Communist Party's tutelage over society.

Dubcek pledged to limit the power of the security services over the people, and announced that Czechoslovakians would be allowed to travel abroad, which did not please the leaders of the Soviet Union.

Talking about reforms was reprehensible and strange to the communists at the time, so the Kremlin launched a propaganda campaign against Dubcek and supporters of reforms, but he insisted on implementing his policy and what he promised in his electoral program, which the Kremlin considered rebellion.

The Role of Writers in the Prague Spring

Some of the contemporaries of these events, including the sociologist Yerena Seklova, trace the causes of the revolution to the Czechoslovak Writers' Congress held in 1967.

Among the participants in the conference were the opposition writer Milan Kundera, whose satirical novel "Jest" focused on totalitarian rule, and the playwright Vaclav Havel, who later became president of the Czech Republic after the division of Czechoslovakia, and paved the way for more openness and the demand for freedom.

At that time, the Communist Party was witnessing a defection, "a warning of something happening," according to Ceklova and Petr Pethart, a party member who later became president of the Czech Senate.

The synergy between the efforts of Kundera and Dubcek caused change, so censorship was abolished and freedom of expression was allowed, which the writers demanded at their aforementioned conference, and new non-communist organizations emerged.

On March 22, 1968, the Secretary-General of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, Antonin Novotny, resigned, following a corruption scandal, and one of the most prominent people involved in it was a close general named Jan Sina, who fled to Italy and then to the United States.

Soviet tanks during their intervention to put out the Prague Spring on August 21, 1968 (Associated Press)

Spring reforms

Although Dubcek's reforms aroused anger among the Kremlin and the leaders of the Soviet Union, they revived the Czechoslovak people and revived the spirit of revolution and change in them.

The "K123" club, a club of former political prisoners, the "Club of Non-Partisan Activists", the Boy Scouts and other movements splintering from the Communist Party appeared.

That period revived the spirit of solidarity among the members of the Czechoslovak people. "It could be said that they were ready for sacrifice. It was an overwhelming feeling of joy," says Pethart.

Dubcek rehabilitated the victims of political purges under former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and issued a reform program in April 1968 that included a guarantee of civil liberties and plans to democratize governance in Czechoslovakia.

The reforms paid attention to the economic side, which the Czechoslovakians were suffering from from its weakness, so it carried out long-awaited industrial and agricultural reforms, and the society touched religious freedom as well, so churches, human rights groups and other aspects of life became active in the democratic space.

On June 27, 1968, writer Ludvik Vaculek published a document known as the "2000 Words Manifesto". This document, signed by many Czechoslovakians, urged mass action to demand real democracy.

The signatories of the document - who represent all classes of Czechoslovak society - demanded actual progress towards democratic rule, and Dubcek's reforms were supportive of his country's autonomy.

The Communist Party became obligated to engage with other political organizations in a democratic competition in which the people would vote, and Dubcek was insistent on "showing socialism with a human face" a way to govern his country, convinced that he could control the transformation of Czechoslovakia.

The Soviet Union, angered by the reforms in Czechoslovakia, sent its forces to control the situation (Associated Press)

Soviet position on reforms

The Soviet Union was disturbed by what was happening in Czechoslovakia, and the members of the Warsaw Pact (a joint defense group) were even more upset after Dubcek refused to participate in a special meeting of the alliance's powers.

The Warsaw Pact sent a message to Dubcek saying that his country "is about to enter into a counter-revolution, and it is the duty of the alliance to protect it," but Dubcek was convinced of the possibility of facing any difficulties that might encounter him.

On August 3, 1968, representatives of the Soviet, East German, Polish, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Czechoslovak Communist Parties met in Bratislava (now the capital of Slovakia).

The meeting issued a statement with the impression that pressure would be eased on Czechoslovakia, in exchange for some tightening of control over the press.

Military suppression of the Prague Spring

Dubcek's departure from adhering to the laws of the leaders of the Communist Party and the Kremlin raised their fears of a repeat of the Prague Spring in the rest of the republics of the Soviet Union, so they decided to intervene by military force to cut off Czechoslovakia's path to autonomy.

On August 11, 1968, nearly 200,000 soldiers from the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, even though it was a member of the alliance.

The Czechoslovak government urged its people to remain calm and not resist the storming soldiers, but the residents took to the streets trying to stop the tanks, and they also went out in demonstrations carrying the flag of Czechoslovakia smeared with blood.

Aleksander Dubcek led a campaign of reforms in Czechoslovakia and changed the policy of the Communist Party (Shutterstock)

On the evening of August 20, 1968, Soviet military units, supported by forces under the banner of the Warsaw Pact, set off for Prague, occupying it with 4,500 armored vehicles and 400 aircraft in the largest military operation in Europe since World War II.

Umbrella forces occupied the headquarters of communist rule in Prague, arrested Alexander Dubcek, the leader of the reforms, Cernik and other leaders, and transferred them to Moscow. The Czechoslovakians gathered in front of the party headquarters, angry demonstrators, but the forces imposed a security cordon on the building to force them to retreat.

The Czechoslovak people reacted spontaneously to the invasion of the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact forces, removing road signs in an attempt to mislead the invading army, and continuing their daily lives despite the disruption of supplies and communications.

On August 23 President Josef Svoboda went to Moscow to negotiate an end to the occupation, but by August 27 the Czechoslovakians had acquiesced to the Soviets' demands in an agreement known as the "Moscow Protocol".

Svoboda, along with Dubcek and the rest of the leaders, returned to Prague, bringing with them the news that the Soviet forces remained in the country, and imposed tight control over political and cultural activities.

Dubcek was dismissed in April 1969 and expelled from the Communist Party, and Czechoslovakia abandoned demands for openness for two decades, until the Velvet Revolution established democracy.